Street Triple R ABS TRIUMPH
this month i have mostly been… “Wanting to send it back...”
Hinckley, we have a problem. I was expecting my first hoot of a ride home on the fleet’s Street Triple R, after the ZX-6R was back at HQ having a fluid change, but this wasn’t in the script. It took the grand distance of two yards to feel that something was up, and that something was around the bike’s steering head.
Rather than have an easy, free feel to the steering, there was some resistance to it. The feeling is like the head race bearings are shot, such is its initial reticence to steer – not good on a 1,000 mile bike. If you’ve ever wrongly routed a cable, so it pulls on the steering, it’s like that. Syrup in a steering damper is another similar feeling. The cables around the headstock are indeed tight, but if you lift the front wheel up the steering just doesn’t want to shift and the feeling is consistent throughout its full range of movement, hence me pointing the finger at the bearings...
So that was the end of the japes, as I rode home trying to work out what was wrong. The inability to steer transfers itself to the rest of your riding, and while the bars would turn, they didn’t with the fluidity I’d like, so the rest of the ride was ruined. Boo!
To be honest, the rest of the bike doesn’t feel brilliant, like they all should. The motor doesn’t have the pep to it that we normally associate the Street Triple R with. I went for a wheelie in second, as I have done a million times on an ST-R, but
Rather than have an easy feel, the steering was resistant...”
there was some reluctance to it that I’ve not encountered before. I had another go, with a bigger handful, and still barely a sniff. Hmm…
Then the throttle cable has so much slack in it, it’s ridiculous. There must be a quarter turn of play before the cable actually pulls on anything. Paul Young, former racer and Triumph tester, hated this on any bike, and he’d be having kittens if he was presented with a throttle like this on a Triumph. How you can meter the bike’s power accurately when you’ve got to turn the gasser 90 degrees, then one more degree to actually apply the power, is beyond me. At least this is a simple fix...
Then we’ve got the ABS being unable to be turned off because the ECU has not been told to open up the option while it goes through the PDI check. The problem here is that ABS is great, until it isn’t. There are instances, like on track or on a hot sunny blast, where all the ABS does is interfere and run you wide on your approach to a corner – you’re never going to lock the front up. So the ability to turn it off is a boon. If you’ve got a Trumpet, check through the set-up menu to see if you can turn yours off. If not, you need to connect the bike up to Triumph’s software, so that means taking it to a dealer – or in our case back to the factory.
Hopefully a quick trip home will rid this bike of that Friday feeling that it currently has. It’s a lesson for all of us, too. Don’t be blinded by the shine of a new bike. If something is wrong, say so to your dealer and get them to sort it out – pronto!